High school students from across Alberta are learning about natural resource management and forestry through a popular summer program – and getting paid to do it.
The Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (AESRD) Junior Forest Rangers (JFR) program has been around since the 1960s, but the projects involved differ each year.
An all-female crew in the program camped at the Ravenbrood Trout Station north of Sundre for three days last week, providing maintenance to the trail system created by another JFR crew some years ago.
Crew leader Rena Dehne said the program allows participants to “get their feet wet” in the AESRD field and it could lead to a variety of jobs within the field, including a fire-related or fish and wildlife-related position.
“That's what we try to encompass all our work projects on, to give them a foot within every little avenue within that department of the government,” said Dehne.
“This program is meant for them to think ‘great, fantastic, I'm going to university for the right thing' or ‘maybe I should change my mind because I really want to be part of – I want to be a fishery man so I want to maybe go more on that avenue',” she explained.
“So it's really tailored to that kind of spectrum of what their education is and see if they actually want to do what they're actually going to university for.”
Throughout the summer, crew members will be listening to presentations by AESRD officials, including a forestry management presentation.
The crew will also be going on a fire lookout tower tour.
“Within that we will also look at how fire affects the land and so we will look at it from the above birds-eye view and then we will go down and actually see the soil itself,” she said.
They will be working on a project at the Frontier Lodge in Nordegg where they will assist with building a trail system.
They will also learn how to read the weather through the clouds.
“One of the best ones we have I think this summer is we're working at Crimson Provincial Park. We're going to do some trail building there. And we're also going to do, they have this family set up day where families can come in and the parks pretty much gives them this whole parcel of camping stuff,” she explained.
“That family may have never camped before in their life. So the junior forest rangers are going to help assist each family and tell them how to set up a tent, how to set up a tarp, what to do, all that kind of stuff.”
It is a seven-week-long annual program held in July and August, and the crews stay together 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Each crew has eight members and two leaders.
The first week of the program involves training with all of the other junior forest rangers in Alberta, and at the end of the program, they all get together again for a competition.
“The junior forest rangers, when they do projects, they try to do the projects that will benefit the community, not for personal businesses,” she explained.
The program allows the members to see first hand how government officials use their resources, why wildfire happens, and it gets them outside of their comfort zone, she said.
“When anybody is out of their comfort zone it really allows them to grow as an individual in many different spectrums, from the summer, from camping outside. For example some of the girls slept in a hammock for the first time last night. Other girls were sleeping underneath the tarp for the first time,” she said.
“They get to meet people from all across Alberta that are going to be long lasting friendships within this program.
“They also get to do things that they normally wouldn't do. It definitely isn't your normal job, your everyday job at all. And they get paid for it. And they get free food and free accommodation within the program and there's not many jobs that offer that.”
Rachael Dodds, from the Edmonton area, is enjoying her first year in the program.
“It's really great. We get to do so many cool things,” said Dodds, who graduated high school this year.
She said they had the opportunity to tour an air tanker base.
“It's a pretty awesome summer job. I mean you're not really going to get paid to do this kind of stuff anywhere else,” she said.
Shauna Schwindt, from Grande Prairie, said she enjoys working outside.
“I came here because I heard it was a great opportunity to gain experience in the forest industry,” said Schwindt.
“So far I've learned a lot about hand tools. And for me personally it's a good way to learn to be independent because I have not been away from my family for this long before.”
It's Dehne's first year working with the program, although she has worked in outdoor education internationally for the past six years.
“Since joining with JFR I'm blown away with the amount of resources that we get to obtain to allow these kids to have this experience,” she said.
“I've never worked with an organization with as many resources that we're able to use and the amount of support that we have.”
She said a lot of people they meet working for AESRD were actually in the program several years ago.
She said she enjoys working in the industry because she gets to work outside and every day is a different day.
“I love it because of the fact that you get to meet a lot of interestingly different people,” she said. “And not only can I teach them but they can teach me. It doesn't matter what age they're at, you're always learning from them and I think that's the best part about the job.”
For more information about the program, contact the program specialist at [email protected].
